Abbreviation vs. Initial

Abbreviationnoun

The result of shortening or reducing; abridgment.

Abbreviationnoun

(linguistics) A shortened or contracted form of a word or phrase, used to represent the whole, utilizing omission of letters, and sometimes substitution of letters, or duplication of initial letters to signify plurality, including signs such as +, =, @.

Abbreviationnoun

The process of abbreviating.

Abbreviationnoun

(music) A notation used in music score to denote a direction, as pp or mf.

Abbreviationnoun

(music) One or more dashes through the stem of a note, dividing it respectively into quavers, semiquavers, demisemiquavers, or hemidemisemiquavers.

Abbreviationnoun

Any convenient short form used as a substitution for an understood or inferred whole.

Abbreviationnoun

(biology) Loss during evolution of the final stages of the ancestral ontogenetic pattern.

Abbreviationnoun

(mathematics) Reduction to lower terms, as a fraction.

Abbreviationnoun

The act of shortening, or reducing.

Abbreviationnoun

The result of abbreviating; an abridgment.

Abbreviationnoun

The form to which a word or phrase is reduced by contraction and omission; a letter or letters, standing for a word or phrase of which they are a part; as, Gen. for Genesis; U.S.A. for United States of America.

Abbreviationnoun

One dash, or more, through the stem of a note, dividing it respectively into quavers, semiquavers, or demi-semiquavers.

Abbreviationnoun

a shortened form of a word or phrase

Abbreviationnoun

shortening something by omitting parts of it

Abbreviation

An abbreviation (from Latin brevis, meaning short) is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word abbreviation can itself be represented by the abbreviation abbr., abbrv., or abbrev.; NPO, for nil (or nothing) per (by) os (mouth) is an abbreviated medical instruction.

Initialadjective

Chronologically first, early; of or pertaining to the beginning, cause or origin.

Initialadjective

Spatially first, placed at the beginning, in the first position; especially said of the first letter of a word.

Initialnoun

The first letter of a word or a name.

Initialnoun

In plural, the first letter of each word of a person's full name considered as a unit.

Initialnoun

A distinguished initial letter of a chapter or section of a document.

Initialnoun

(phonology) onset, part of a syllable that precedes the syllable nucleus in phonetics and phonology.

Initialverb

(transitive) To sign one's initial(s), as an abbreviated signature.

Initialadjective

Of or pertaining to the beginning; marking the commencement; incipient; commencing; as, the initial symptoms of a disease.

Initialadjective

Placed at the beginning; standing at the head, as of a list or series; as, the initial letters of a name.

Initialnoun

The first letter of a word or a name.

Initialverb

To put an initial to; to mark with an initial of initials.

Initialnoun

the first letter of a word (especially a person's name);

Initialverb

mark with one's initials

Initialadjective

occurring at the beginning;

Initial

In a written or published work, an initial or drop cap is a letter at the beginning of a word, a chapter, or a paragraph that is larger than the rest of the text. The word is derived from the Latin initialis, which means standing at the beginning.